A Great Cruise of Battle-ships.
The great fleet of battle-ships which left Hampton Roads, Va., Dec. 16, 1907, anchored in Hampton Roads, Feb. 22, 1909, after having skirted South America to San Francisco, to New Zealand, to Australia, to the Philippines, to Japan, to China, to India, through Suez Canal, to Gibraltar, and home, a total voyage of over 42,000 miles. It was a wonderful cruise. The fleet left amid “the shouting of the captains” and “the thunder of the guns.” It has been warmly, loudly, vociferously, strenuously greeted at the many places it has visited, and officers and men feted and feasted, till body and soul were sated. And the home-coming was “the greatest welcome in all history,” at least, so reads the chronicler. Our strenuous, out-going President was in his glory as he reviewed the fleet. Twenty-five vessels were in line, all “armed to the teeth,” and dressed for the occasion. Then, too, it was on Washington’s birthday. There have been no accidents worthy of note and but few deaths. How much of the sickness, which has been among the men, was due to high living at the expense of varied cities and peoples visited, is problematical. It was a great voyage, and the enthusiasm created by it will mean, doubtless, a much bigger navy, a great fleet for each coast. English authorities have already said that they do not include the United States among the nations in their two-to-one program. Yet, after all, does it pay? Is it a message of peace? If I visit my neighbor who is bellicose of feeling over our line fence, with a Krag-Jorgensen and a brace of Colt’s, he might be loath to begin trouble and might welcome me quite profusely for the time, but would the feelings I would nurture in his heart be those of peace? About the first he would do after my visit, if he were able, would be to invest in the most approved and latest noiseless, smokeless firearms; and if this were not possible, he would try to make the strongest sort of alliance for defense and offense with my neighbor on the other side. Then, when they were ready and had nurtured that war spirit for months or years, would peace be the outcome? There are tramping to-day in fair California and elsewhere in this great land hundreds and thousands of men who are willing to work if they could get it to do. Many thousands are without work in our great cities. Would it not be a far greater blessing, a mightier lesson of peace, if the forty or fifty millions expended for four battle-ships were used, for instance, in building a great national highway, a superb roadway, from New York to San Francisco, paying a minimum scale of hard-times wages, an encouragement only for those out of work? When that was finished, build another, if necessary, and so encourage the arts of industry and peace. There is much more which might be said. Why do not some of our great statesmen take up the issue? It is not a new suggestion.